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The Broken Road: Session One.
Sep. 20th, 2011 01:25 amTha patrol assembled at the Royal stables at dawn the morning of April 2nd. Eustacious' manservant arrived a few minutes early to inform the Lord Ensign that Eustacious was running late, but apart from that, everyone was close enough to being on time that it caused little fuss. Lord Ensign Richgrave, not being much given to inspirational speeches, informed everyone that while they had nine months to travel eight hundred miles, he still intended to keep a rigorous schedule, and be back in town in time for his seventieth birthday and the ensuing retirement.
They rode a grand total of about three miles, to an Inn on the edge of the city -- the Sign of the Burning Oak, apparently a regular haunt of local guardsmen, judging by the clientele and practical decor (a lot of local maps, mostly). While the Long Circuit is meant to focus on the concerns of the neglected outer Baronies, there are always a few cases referred to them while they travel out along the Spoke Road -- in this case, two before they even leave the barony of Applered, and one of them within city limits itself.
The first case, a nine-day old murder and horse-theft, was referred to them by frustrated city guardsmen unable to find a lead and assuming that another murder in a different Duchy is connected, thus making this a case for the Crown to avoid jurisdictional issues. The second case, one of petty poaching in a private game preserve, was sent to them by the local Baron himself, believing his own guards not up to the task. Lord Richgrave informs his team, somewhat sourly, that they will be paying most of their attention to Baron Applered's case, as his rank gives it precedence. He does, however, split the team, so that for the first two days on the job, each of them gets a chance to investigate each matter.
(GM note: yes, I deliberately split the party, the way one always does in a police procedural. rapidly shifting from scene to scene meant no-one spent too much time idle and bored, but all in all it was probably still a bad idea, and I don't intend to repeat it soon or often).
Over the course of two days, some basic facts were assembled in the murder case: a Madrigal stableboy was horsewhipped to death in the alley behind the hostelry where he worked, and afterward three Madrigal-bred stallions were stolen, along with the ledger recording whose horses were within. Between examining the scene, questioning both the local guards, their reports, and witnesses; and looking at the body (on ice in a local butcher's shop), the party determined that no-one saw or heard anything -- despite the murder occurring on a night when there was considerable local traffic and a great many late-night parties in the area -- and that the victim remained standing until he died of blood loss. This suggested magical assistance in the murder, implicating a noble. The wounds also seemed consistent with someone who had used a whip to train animals, but not as a weapon, and between the clumsiness and the number of strokes, considerable fury or passion was suspected. Querying the local socialites, almost two dozen conspicuous absences were noticed from local parties that night. Deductive reasoning produced two suspects who fit the criteria and evidence better than the rest... but one's whereabouts are unknown, and the other was last seen halfway across the kingdom from the second murder -- where a Madrigal singer was asphyxiated with honey while standing in a public courtyard late at night. So there is no definitive proof pointint at anyone... not even the longer list, really. But solid investigative technique was used, and it was consistent with the beliefs and methods of the time -- so kudos to my PCs, even if they still have a ways to go on this one.
The poaching case was resolved by the second night, however. Despite the Baron's paranoid fantasy of local peasants depleting his prized herds of deer, the party suspected a large predator was responsible almost from the first. Ruling out the wyverns of Drakesbury as culprits, an initial pet theory, they found evidence of a burrowing creature by the water -- something large, with a distinct musky scent, like a ferret or weasel might have. Setting a local huntsman to plant snares near the burrows and scrapes and watch for the beast, they retired for the night -- only to find upon the following morning that the deer were all accounted for, but the huntsman was gone. Digging into a hidden burrow from above, they found not only suggestive tracks but the bodies of deer and huntsman -- decapitated and dismembered, but with their torsos largely uneaten. Piecing together the tracks and the signs that this creature had hands with woodscraft and old folklore, they identified it as a Face-Eater, a wickedly intelligent beast from over the Wall with the face of an ape, front paws of an otter, legs of a dog, body of a weasel, and a human hand upon its tail. Assembling the party in full, they rode out at night to ambush it, suspecting it would come for the corralled deer. While it lured them away from their ambush spot, they were still well-prepared, and though Adrastus took some nasty bruising, they brought the beast down without serious injury. Some unanticipated bright lights revealed that Adrastus' combat magic gave him the posture, ears, and eyes of a panther -- and transformative magic, in the Allotment, is considered one of the hallmarks of either blood magic or faerie magic, both of them taboo.
Like most first sessions, the party is still finding their balance with one another, as am I, but I thought it was a solid introduction with some excellent character moments, such as Eustacious summoning his valet and producing a spade the moment they found the burrow to dig into, or Vitenthia refusing to eat meat for two days after seeing the dead body, while Justika ate with indifferent aplomb.
They rode a grand total of about three miles, to an Inn on the edge of the city -- the Sign of the Burning Oak, apparently a regular haunt of local guardsmen, judging by the clientele and practical decor (a lot of local maps, mostly). While the Long Circuit is meant to focus on the concerns of the neglected outer Baronies, there are always a few cases referred to them while they travel out along the Spoke Road -- in this case, two before they even leave the barony of Applered, and one of them within city limits itself.
The first case, a nine-day old murder and horse-theft, was referred to them by frustrated city guardsmen unable to find a lead and assuming that another murder in a different Duchy is connected, thus making this a case for the Crown to avoid jurisdictional issues. The second case, one of petty poaching in a private game preserve, was sent to them by the local Baron himself, believing his own guards not up to the task. Lord Richgrave informs his team, somewhat sourly, that they will be paying most of their attention to Baron Applered's case, as his rank gives it precedence. He does, however, split the team, so that for the first two days on the job, each of them gets a chance to investigate each matter.
(GM note: yes, I deliberately split the party, the way one always does in a police procedural. rapidly shifting from scene to scene meant no-one spent too much time idle and bored, but all in all it was probably still a bad idea, and I don't intend to repeat it soon or often).
Over the course of two days, some basic facts were assembled in the murder case: a Madrigal stableboy was horsewhipped to death in the alley behind the hostelry where he worked, and afterward three Madrigal-bred stallions were stolen, along with the ledger recording whose horses were within. Between examining the scene, questioning both the local guards, their reports, and witnesses; and looking at the body (on ice in a local butcher's shop), the party determined that no-one saw or heard anything -- despite the murder occurring on a night when there was considerable local traffic and a great many late-night parties in the area -- and that the victim remained standing until he died of blood loss. This suggested magical assistance in the murder, implicating a noble. The wounds also seemed consistent with someone who had used a whip to train animals, but not as a weapon, and between the clumsiness and the number of strokes, considerable fury or passion was suspected. Querying the local socialites, almost two dozen conspicuous absences were noticed from local parties that night. Deductive reasoning produced two suspects who fit the criteria and evidence better than the rest... but one's whereabouts are unknown, and the other was last seen halfway across the kingdom from the second murder -- where a Madrigal singer was asphyxiated with honey while standing in a public courtyard late at night. So there is no definitive proof pointint at anyone... not even the longer list, really. But solid investigative technique was used, and it was consistent with the beliefs and methods of the time -- so kudos to my PCs, even if they still have a ways to go on this one.
The poaching case was resolved by the second night, however. Despite the Baron's paranoid fantasy of local peasants depleting his prized herds of deer, the party suspected a large predator was responsible almost from the first. Ruling out the wyverns of Drakesbury as culprits, an initial pet theory, they found evidence of a burrowing creature by the water -- something large, with a distinct musky scent, like a ferret or weasel might have. Setting a local huntsman to plant snares near the burrows and scrapes and watch for the beast, they retired for the night -- only to find upon the following morning that the deer were all accounted for, but the huntsman was gone. Digging into a hidden burrow from above, they found not only suggestive tracks but the bodies of deer and huntsman -- decapitated and dismembered, but with their torsos largely uneaten. Piecing together the tracks and the signs that this creature had hands with woodscraft and old folklore, they identified it as a Face-Eater, a wickedly intelligent beast from over the Wall with the face of an ape, front paws of an otter, legs of a dog, body of a weasel, and a human hand upon its tail. Assembling the party in full, they rode out at night to ambush it, suspecting it would come for the corralled deer. While it lured them away from their ambush spot, they were still well-prepared, and though Adrastus took some nasty bruising, they brought the beast down without serious injury. Some unanticipated bright lights revealed that Adrastus' combat magic gave him the posture, ears, and eyes of a panther -- and transformative magic, in the Allotment, is considered one of the hallmarks of either blood magic or faerie magic, both of them taboo.
Like most first sessions, the party is still finding their balance with one another, as am I, but I thought it was a solid introduction with some excellent character moments, such as Eustacious summoning his valet and producing a spade the moment they found the burrow to dig into, or Vitenthia refusing to eat meat for two days after seeing the dead body, while Justika ate with indifferent aplomb.
